How to Negotiate Successfully
We negotiate every day in business and life. Either we do it with intention, or we just let others dictate what we get. In this post, I want to share with you some important aspects of negotiations that will help you to be more intentional so that you get more of what you want. Negotiation skills are one of the most important skills we need to succeed in business and project management.
Negotiation skill is something that is not taught enough, so that is why I want to share some tips here from my 20 years of teaching negotiation strategies and tactics to top executives, lawyers, entreprenuers.
Here are some typical situations from an entrepreneur and project manager's life. We can lose a lot if we do not negotiate like a pro.
Have you ever experienced the following?
- You are the entrepreneur or project manager and you need to hire experts for some tasks, but don't want to overspend and make sure the task gets done in high quality.
- The client wants you to finish your project 2 weeks earlier than planned but you know it is impossible. You know you need to talk but you do not want to make the client upset.
- You want to be paid for your effort planning, controlling and leading the project but in the project budget there is no fee planned for your time and effort.
If these or similar situations in your project leader life are familiar you definitely want not only to talk but to negotiate or renegotiate deals.
What is a negotiation
Negotiation is a specific communication process that is at the core of every successful business.
Negotiation Definition:
Negotiation is a dialogue between two or more parties to reach a favorable agreement on a subject where they have different positions.
- Negotiation helps to resolve conflicts and get commitment to a set of actions.
- Negotiation is the ability to influence others and resolve conflict s and gain agreement
Why do we need to negotiate?
As many people and experts we are, we all have our own agenda and priorities. Often it is enough to ask for the resources we need to make our big project a reality, but sometimes it seems harder to get them, or we have restrictions with whom to work and who to hire.
And all professionals like to have their own priorities, and now you kind of disturb them with your request.
As a project manager, leader, executive and entrepreneur you need to negotiate deals and get commitment in situations like the following.
- Hiring experts
- Closing a deal
- Purchasing supplies
- Getting support from your sponsor
- Negotiating terms and conditions of delivery
- Signing your contract for being assigned and paid as a project manager
- …
Who do we negotiate with?
We negotiate every day with our children, family members, friends, shop assistants, customer service, at the checking in the airport, in a restaurant.
Who do leaders negotiate with in projects?
In business projects, we typically negotiate with:
- Customers, about price, the scope of a project , the term of payment about paying for project management
- Colleagues, about resources, the strategy, the solution itself technology
- Business partners about responsibilities,
- Team members-about their terms of being a team member in the project, the scope of their tasks, leave for holidays, payment, bonuses, the use of technology, solutions
- Suppliers - time of delivery, quality and quantity of supplies,
- Experts - their fees and responsibility
- Department leaders-resources you need, and they have, and they are reluctant to give you in order to fulfill the scope of work
- Authorities about regulations, permissions, licenses...
- Investors - about feasibility and budget, financing terms and conditions, interest rates,
- The significant other, family and friends and children - about how to spend weekends, how much time you overwork, what are heir needs and what kind of support you need to get the project done, about your workplace at home etc.
How do we negotiate successfully?
We need to manage the balance of staying focused on getting results and building relationships at the same time.
In my negotiation training, we do a lot of role play with case studies, so that participants can gain personal experience negotiating deals. During the debrief session, they learn a lot about how to improve the negotiation outcome.
Here are 3 key areas to focus on that I found that will help to get more of what you want:
- People and the relationship
- Results and how to communicate the wants and needs
- Process - how to start, lead and get to a mutual agreement.
Prepare your negotiation success! It is 80 % preparation. If you want to get some support, download my free e-book for preparing negotiation success here!
Secret #1:Focus on People:
Business and life is about people.
Let's start with know yourself and your personal negotiation style. Any negotiation requires us to communicate.
1. Know your personal communication performance
Become aware of your communication frequencies and how do others see you. Understand and how can you get your message across effectively.
Your personal SCIL communication performance profile will give you insights to 16 frequencies everyone sues more or less effectively to send and receive information, like radio stations.
With such a scientific proven profile you immediately get feedback on your personal communication preferences and exact hints on how you may improve your communication, make people better understand you, trust you and perceive you more as the authority.
2. Know your Negotiation style.-Your behavior in negotiations is partly learned and is most likely something you copied from others unconsciously and mixed it up with your personality style.
3. Know your emotional triggers -all the super concepts and tactics do not help if you are not in an emotional state that allows you to think. In our training, we identify such triggers and practice new patterns so that they replace the old ones.
4. Learn how to use the power of your beliefs and your emotional state to positively influence the outcome of a negotiation. If you are not believing that the results you want possible, how can somebody else?
5. Learn to read the people on the other side at the negotiation table. And to identify their negotiation style
Once you know your Communication performance profile, you will be able to read the counterpart with ease.
Main objective of all these insights and learning is to empower you to build successful relationships with your negotiation partner, have mire fun interacting with business partners, being able to communicate your needs and wants very clear and to be easily understood by different personalities.
Secret #2. Focus on the Results:
So many people make the mistake of starting the negotiation without priming themselves for the result and the outcome. They are just talking, waffling but not aware what and why they want to negotiate, aka what they really want as the ideal outcome. Here are some things you should get clear on before you start.
- Know exactly what do you want
- Know what the other party wants
- Know your organization and business goals and how this negotiation fit into the overall strategy
- Prepare your arguments
- Prepare your walkaway position
- Prepare alternative options
I personally always set 2 Goals, a minimum and a maximum, goal. . That really helps me not get pulled over the table to give in and saying yes o something that I don't really want.
Secret #3 : Focus on Negotiation Strategy, Processes and Tactics
The negotiation can be in one discussion, and it can be over a longer time period and consist of several meetings. It can be short like 10 min and long as hours and days. There are so many tactics you can learn to influence others in your favor. However, make sure you always come from a place of service and mutual benefit. Any signature you get by applying and tricks will fire back, as in most countries the customer has the right to step back from a contract. Honestly, any signed contract document is only as good as both parties want to stick to it. But a signature even on a napkin is gold,
Here are some tips for business negotiations.
- Map and Assess the negotiation power of all the negotiating parties /participants -
- Develop a core negotiation strategy and adapt as you get more insights
- Extend the perceived Value of what you can bring to the negotiation table
- Choose the right negotiation and influence tactics
- Monitor and review the results and plan next steps
Make sure to deepen the relationship all the time, as this is the bridge you need to get your ask across and to meet the other negotiation party for agreement.
Conclusion
Improving our ability to communicate, influence others and build relationships is a lifelong process. It all starts with self awareness. In all our trainings, we focus on up leveling our communication performance.
The ability to map out the negotiation play and knowing the negotiation strategies s and tactics can be learned and applied by anybody whether you are introvert or extrovert.
It requires only the patience to learn and apply by preparing the negotiation. You can change the negotiation outcome by planning so much and make sure that small mistakes in the communication can be easily corrected.
Tools for Negotiation Planning :
Prepare your Negotiation Success with my free Workbook click here
